Day 2: Christchurch to Dunedin

Spent most of the day driving down to Dunedin along the coast. It began with a prolonged obstacle course through roadworks and witches' hats, but eventually sorted itself out into a reasonably good single carriageway with overtaking lanes every 5km or so. The car performed well but it's quite noisy, and I haven't brought a device that will allow me to play my devices through the speakers. So I might have to look into NZ radio channels and find some classical music.

The drive itself was about five hours, but I stopped on the way at Rakaia -- a rather sad little town, obviously suffering from the closure of the railway -- Temuka, which was a bit more lively and even had a brewery, Glenavy, which had some pleasant gardens just out of town, and Palmerston. I had heard of Palmerston for some reason, but there's not much there. It's where the logging trucks come down to the main road from the mountains.

A bout of rain came on after Palmerston and the scenery became a bit more hilly and impressive. Dunedin came up pretty quickly after that, and I got lost a couple of times on my way out to the accommodation. The fact that they were digging up the roads on the way didn't help.

The accommodation is about 10k from Dunedin, around the bay to the east. It's in two sections, a kitchen and bathroom down below and then some stairs out in the open up to the bedroom above. The owner has gone berserk with her artwork everywhere, and it's all very cluttered so I have to move carefully, but there's a washing machine and real coffee, and she's provided fresh eggs from her chooks in the back yard, which runs up a steep hill. These include some of those odd breeds that lay coloured eggs, so I had green and blue eggs for dinner along with ham, cheese and fresh bread.

The rain came on seriously after that and it was too far to bother finding the shops or a bar, so I just read and watched it rain for a while before going to bed. It's not far from here to Lanarch Castle, an old building in the highlands on the peninsula, so I might do that tomorrow before heading into town.

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Jon Jermey
Indexer and database consultant
042 535 0422
webindexing.com.au

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